There are only two phases to a big program: Too early to tell and too late to stop. Program advocates like to keep bad news covered up until they have spent so much money that they can advance the sunk-cost argument; that it’s too late to cancel the program because we’ve spent too much already.
Fitzgerald's First Law of Program Success,in James P. Stevenson. The Pentagon Paradox: The Development of the F-18 Hornet. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1993, p. 305.
The above quote is all too common, especially in Enterprise IT and DoD weapons systems. It's not necessarily because the project participants deliberately withhold information. But more because of missing objective and accurate information on the status of the program, its progress to date, and the forecasts of future performance of the program.
This is course is unacceptable to everyone, from the project's participants, to the funding owners for the project. Effective management control is lost the moment accurate information about the project is unavailable.
So what is meant by effective management control and the information needed to apply this control?
First let me displel the notion of "command and control," is the boggy man of project management. It's someone else's money, letting the participants who are developing the product or service manage that money, along with the time is utter nonsense. You wouldn't do that for the lawn mowing service, the house painters, the car wash guys or the tailor fixing your suit jacket.
You'd state what you want done, when you want it done, and how much you're willing the pay for that service. This notion that software is somehow not subject to oversight and management control is pure "hog wash."
So if software is somehow "different," from house painting or suit tailoring, where is the boundary for management control. How about:
- This is how much money I have, what can I get for my money?
- This is how much time I have, what can you deliver to me in that time?
- These are the "must have" features, can I get those within a reasonable time and a reasonable cost, if I tell you the time and cost?
If any answer is other than a measurable number, with a confidence interval around it, developed through some logical, take your money and run away.
